Reckless Entanglement: The Hunter Brothers Book # 1
would mean that Marco’s moved on from hitting on you.”A shiver of revulsion goes through me as I remember being called to Marco’s office. His disgusting little hand on my knee. The things he said to me. “That’s true. I’d rather be in his bad books than in his might want to sleep with me books. But I still think it’s wrong how Matt shirks everything and we’re the ones taking the shit for it.”
Chloe laughs and shakes her head.
“What?” I demand.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks me.
I shake my head. I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“You’re not pissed off with Matt because he gets one over on Marco. You would totally celebrate that. You’re pissed off because you want him and he hasn’t called you quickly enough for your liking.”
“That’s not true,” I say, too quickly. Oh God. Is it true? Am I that far gone that I’m projecting my feelings about Matt rejecting me onto something else?
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day Callie.” Chloe smirks knowingly.
Dammit. I knew I shouldn’t have let her draw me into this conversation. I should have just gone back to my dorm room like I’d planned to. Or listened to her go on about whatever it was. “Let’s pretend for a second that you’re right. And you’re not by the way. What the hell do I do? Matt’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t want to talk to me, and if he turns back up at work, I have to face him.”
“He might think you’re the one that made that clear. Picture the scene. He gets a call that his dear grandad has been taken to hospital. He can’t tell you because he’s afraid he won’t be able to get the words out without crying, and he doesn’t want you to see him crying. So he leaves, hoping you call him later. But you don’t. And so he thinks he’s pissed you off and it’s too late to explain. He now thinks you don’t want to talk to him. Awww… poor Matt. It’s all just a misunderstanding. If only he knew.” Chloe shakes her head sadly, speaking like a voice over in a soap opera recap.
I can’t help but laugh. She’s so dramatic. “Ok, nice story. But seriously, Chloe. What do I do?”
“Well, you have two choices. You confront him, or you let this whole cloud you have hanging over you go and avoid him like the plague.”
I think back to his first day on the job. I had managed to avoid him easily enough. I know I can do it again. The thing is, I don’t want to. But Chloe’s right. I can’t go on in this limbo, and I’m not about to march up to Matt and embarrass myself by demanding to know why he didn’t kiss me on Friday. What if he’s not married and he just realized it was a bad idea? I don’t think I could handle him laughing in my face and saying the tequila wore off.
“Avoid him it is then,” I state with a nod.
Chloe shakes her head. “A beer says it doesn’t happen.” She grins.
“You’re on.” I grin back.
Chapter Eight
Callie
It’s Thursday before Matt shows back up to work. Marco greets him like nothing has happened when he strolls back onto the restaurant floor.
My heart skips a beat as I look at him. I can’t help but think how close we were to kissing. How his lips felt in that half a second they brushed against mine. I remind myself I am over Matt and I am avoiding him. I turn away brusquely, glad to see a regular customer at one of my tables waving me down. I hurry over, keeping my back to Matt. When I finish taking the customer’s drink order, I can’t help but glance back in the direction I saw Matt and Marco standing as I made my way over to the table. They’re gone. I try to tell myself that’s a good thing, but the disappointment sits in my stomach like a rock, mocking my thoughts.
The restaurant isn’t hugely busy tonight, and we keep having quiet moments where we get a chance to chat for a few seconds. Usually in those moments, Matt and I stand together, making up scenarios for our customers, anything from scenes at their workplace to outlandish ideas about what goes on in their bedrooms. Today, that doesn’t happen. It soon becomes clear to me that Matt is avoiding me every bit as much as I am avoiding him.
It confirms my thoughts; he has rejected me. Whether that’s because he’s married or not, I still don’t know, but I tell myself it doesn’t matter. The last thing I need is a distraction at work, and workplace relationships have always been off limits for me. I’m not about to start changing my principals just because a hot guy almost threw me a bone on a night when he had nothing better to do.
I’m not going to confront him. Chloe was wrong about me. I can do this. I’ll just keep avoiding him. If anything, him avoiding me too, is making it easier to do that. Still though, I find my eyes moving to him every time he’s around and not looking in my direction. Every time I see him, I feel my heart skip a beat, my pussy gets wet at the thought of what I would like to do to him. I tell myself it’s just lust; nothing more. If I tell myself it enough, I might even start to believe it.
A loud party comes into the restaurant, pulling my attention away from Matt for a second. There’s four of them. All men, somewhere in their fifties. And they’ve clearly had a little bit too much to drink. My heart sinks when they choose to sit in my section. I hang back for a moment, looking for Macro. I spot him and gesture to him discreetly.
He comes over.